Wet Sides Story
by I.S.L.Supporter
Summary: During the whole day -even at lunch time- I couldn't help thinking of something wonderful, yet still unknown to me. Very deep in my mind it was, however; fresh, beautiful and homely.
1. To the Forest and beyond it

**Since the very moment I was born, not even my own mother could have guessed how odd, or strange, I would be.  
****She was perfect in her motherhood, of course; nothing to complain about that. It was only me, among other three babies, who needed ( and really needed ) something that most Cats would like to avoid.  
****During the whole day -even at lunch time- I couldn't help thinking of something wonderful, yet still unknown to me. Very deep in my mind it was, however; fresh, beautiful and homely. But nothing like that could be found nearby.  
****In my long periods of sleep it came, thru' strange dreams in which I was diving, and swimming, and jumping joyfully along with the..., the...  
****But I still hadn't a word for their name, and, nevertheless, in the dream we were linked in heart and soul.  
****Maybe it's here, where my story really starts, as well as the quest of my unknown true home.  
****  
Let me tell you, then, the place where I was born was a small farm with some Horses and Goats, a group of hills to the north and a forest westwards.  
****It was mid-summer and, through the long June northern evenings a low but continuous noise came sometimes to my ears. Something beyond the woods entered into my mind as if wanting to call me, and my spirit longed to be there, for the noise reminded me in some way that home of my dreams.  
****But no matter how I wanted to go there... Being so little ( oh, sorry, you still don't know I'm a girl, being my color the grey with black stripes ); so little then, for I was not much more than a year old, that it would take me almost two more years for my mom to let me checking out what was there.  
****Anyway, I was lucky when from the sky came a little sample of what appeared in my dreams. And as mom stayed on her comfortable rug, my brothers playing or looking through the windows, my tiny fifteen months old body was enjoying the raindrops on the tall green grass. Would you believe that? ...In a matter of seconds I was running in every direction, jumping over the fences, splashing, rolling and dragging myself in the muddy holes now filled with that precious thing which up to that day I only used to drink.  
****Believing myself crazy, after recovering some of my breath I decided to enter the forest wishing the drops never stopped their falling.  
****So what was this beautiful thing? ...As hundreds of drops continued falling from the sky, dying on the ground or running on my skin, I could see part of my world in the puddles where the same rain splashed and chimed.  
****Now anyone could have called me a crazy Cat. Already a long way from home and my family, for the rest of that day I searched under a rainfall the place to which I surely belonged to.  
****  
Mom watched me coming back at sunset and called with anxiety mixed with reproach. Then she ran straight to me to carry my wet, disobeying person back to the farm... In her action of taking me, there were both maternal pride and decision. I couldn't move until she finished drying me and even then my mom wouldn't let me go out of her sight.  
****Being forced to stay there, suddenly I felt tired in body and soul. Under mom's authority the tiredness took control of me and my little body didn't move from that spot until next morning.  
****What did I dream that night? Well, for me it's still hard to find the words, but if something was there, it was happiness, jumps over the water at incredible speed and a band of white foam. In the dream it was me, plus fifteen of my kind, following the white trace mostly for fun.  
****Surely you've already guessed who or what were we, but for me, the answer just could appear after a long time... Or never. So I started praying that it would come some day.  
****Next day dawned sunny... The wind had taken the fresh gift of raindrops far away from me.  
****Mom called us three times in the morning and four in the evening, to give us her milk and some other things. When she went to take a nap I found a chance to go outside.  
****Where could have the rain gone? I strove for hearing at least the single plink of a drop... Nothing absolutely. Then, a little downhearted, I went towards the Horses' fence and jumped on it.  
****There another sign of madness came into my mind, seeming for me a very good idea: a dark-skinned Horse turned to look at me for a few seconds, and when he continued browsing right beside the fence, I gave a short jump to fall on his back.  
****Now that was a real blind date with the danger! Scarcely the Horse felt my little nails when he turned himself into an equine earthquake. With the combined impulse of his reaction and mine, I flew more than 1,50 mts. to fall out of the fence perimeter... Surely having lost the first of my lives too soon.  
****  
It seemed definitely the end of my quest and of every sign of eccentricity in me. For many days I had to stay at home, only sleeping or playing with my brothers, chasing them or being chased. Mom wouldn't have none of us out of her sight... I knew it was well, since we were her children; but if only there was in me the courage to tell her of my dream and then she understood me... One day I should gather the strenght to do that.  
****One week came and passed, then another; and the chasing game with my brothers had completely lost any thrill for me. To make it worst, in that month it rained unceasingly for two days... I could do nothing but keep watching with sadness my beloved rain slipping by the glass and covering all the field around the farm.  
****Unexpectedly, mom came to comfort me, licking my face and neck. Then I turned to look at her and saw that for the first time she could understand my feelings.  
****Right after that, mom and I were watching side by side a Rainbow which lasted about seven minutes; and if I watched it as delighted as speechless, she appeared to have received a message. Because she nudged me gently from the chair to take me outside and walk with me to the very edge of the woods.  
****Over the grass still wet, beside the dark trees, she rubbed her neck against mine and turned back home, purring loudly to say goodbye.  
****Sudden loneliness, excitement, fear, freedom, all of it and more burned inside me in the moment of farewell.  
**'**What's more -I thought, this time sadly-, that beautiful lights we saw in the sky are gone, too'.  
****I had now only a dream to find, beyond a big forest and a green sea. If I walked back home right now, mom would've felt very disappointed.  
**'**Even if she doesn't know what I've been dreaming, mom will keep talking to her remaining children about how her daughter went far off in search of what she wanted above all after her family'.  
****...And since that wandering daughter wasn't ready to retrace her steps, I entered the forest for the second time.**


	2. It's my river!

**For almost three months I explored the forest, until every tree was well known to me. ****The first weeks I felt scared, of course, but one night that the rain came back, not even many thunders would've made me run frightened. I simply watched the lightnings on a tree bough, feeling in the best of chairs; and when the raindrops started their song I descended quickly to enjoy them.  
****There you could see me, lying by the tree in a sphinx position, with my beloved rain falling all over and around me; after a while I rested on one side and stretched. The pearled drops seemed to hit the grass with renewed strenght. It lasted half an hour, to turn into a light, yet continuous drizzle.  
****In what was part of my world, new thoughts came into my mind.  
****What was it really part of? ...Enjoying the rain this way, where could take me to? What was waiting beyond my own knowledge?  
****I'd have to leave the wood to find the answers. This particular thought came many hours later, as the first lights of day were already visible.  
****The dawn was grey, cold and cloudy; maybe it would rain again. Nothing of it could bother me now.  
****Now talking about lunch, if you asked me what was my meal made of, all that time, I would answer: two or three Squirrels and four unfortunate Birds which I found on the ground, surely wounded or dead because of the storm.  
****But I must confess you something: for some strange reason, not the Squirrels nor the Birds were much of my liking. Instead, my sense of taste was looking for a prey still unknown to me.  
**'**So if there's a sea -I said myself in a meow-, it's not made of grass, but of mysteries... And all of them linked to me! Or by any chance to my dreams? I'd like to know right now!'  
****And what was I doing there, anyway? Even after lying on the wet grass under the rain, there were still those tall trees surrounding me. But where could I search for something without having seen it in all my life?  
****  
In my heart a feeling of desperation began growing slowly. Then, remembering my pray about the answer I wanted, unspoken words of hope took shape again in my mind.  
****Answers would come, albeit in the way and moment most unexpected. About seven days later, and two after another rainy day that this time didn't delighted me as much as the others, for the first time since I came to this forest I could hear that loud, continuous noise, now much nearer.  
****The mysterious noise reminded me strongly the rain, though it seemed to fall from nowhere and sing along the horizon.  
****Finally, beyond the western edge of my forest and at the end of a smooth ravine, I saw the source of that rain-like noise: a river was running southwards.  
****My first big discovery was there, before my very eyes. The river had grown because of the last rains (indeed, I knew about swellings only several months later), but the opposite bank was perfectly visible.  
****Now, what a wonderful place! There was hardly something better than that, if I knew a little about the world.  
****If mom were here to see me, so happy! If my brothers could enjoy the water with me!  
****But the thought of force them never crossed my mind and, however, if they would find the same pleasure I could feel, when being completely wet, surely no one of them would like to miss this experience.  
****While a little part of me wished that all of them were right there, my heart was full of joy when I swam in the watercourse; there I went to left and right; then two mts. under the surface; then learning about the stream and how to use it; then swimming a long distance up and downstream. It was maybe one hundred times better than staying under the raindrops, though of course I never forget how much I liked the rain.  
****After two hours of playing in each part of the stream, I left it to rest on a bank of sand almost as wet as me.  
****  
The thought that nothing could be superior to that, as it's explained before, kept me by the river for three or four more months; the dawnings beyond my woods became part of every tree at the Fall season.  
****Swimming in the middle of the stream (at least two times each day), soon I was an experienced Fish-Catcher. Even in my first days of exploration, you would have seen me reaching the middle of the river, taking a bit of air and going right to the sandy bottom, where small Fishes tried to hide under the pebbles or among some acquatic plants.  
****But, not knowing what to do about me, they always ended in my stomach if I wanted to catch them.  
****Now do you remember that Birds and Squirrels were not of my liking? Well, here was what I liked for a meal above all.  
****If mom would see me now... I don't know how many times this thought came into my mind. But of course, while I knew that she wasn't anywhere but the farm, she never could guess exactly where her wandering daughter was.  
****The moments that I most missed her and my brothers, were generally when the dawns blended with yellow-colored leaves covering the ground among trees.  
****When the last leaves had just fell from their branches -and after a week in which it rained as even I wouldn't have expected, for more than two days-, the Fall left his kingdom to the Winter.**

**Next morning I had just reached the eastern bank getting out of the water when a wind came thru' my forest whistling and singing; it was too cold for my wet hair. Then, doing what seemed to me more reasonable, I went back to the river and stayed -in the middle of a puddle- in my favorite sphinx position.  
****Only with my head and neck out of the water, in this way I found that if the weather was very cold, puddles were a good place to be a little warmer.  
****My new big discovery made me purr while because of the wind hundreds of lil' drops were running down my face or falling from my whiskers.  
****So having found this beautiful place, could I go on looking something else? Then I said to myself: 'If there's indeed anything much bigger than this river, well, the years of my life are still long enough for me to find it '.  
****However, my strange dreams didn't stop coming. Just two days later, a new one would come in which we -the Swimming Group- now seemed to dance above the water... The first time I saw my home of dream from outside; it looked like a stream without any limit except for the coast. An incredibly long coastline where the water ran on the wet sand, coming and going as endlessly as swiftly.  
****A great flock of Birds was flying not far from the shore; some of them would launch themselves into the water to come out after a few seconds with a fish inside their mouth.  
****All this images appeared so vividly in my dream, that I thought I should've known where this place was.  
****But it wasn't true; and if I left the river without any sign which took me in the right direction, it would've been no more than a long but fruitless quest.  
****Now back to myself, with the water of my puddle covering most part of me, after all I couldn't spend there the entire day, no matter how charming it would seem to me.  
****Without stopping my purr, I walked to sleep on the grass letting the wind dry my hair; I wouldn't dive again in the stream for fishing until it was evening.  
****By the way... ( Shhhh, it's one of my little secrets ), through all my days beside the river, this bed of grass was for me what the rug was for my mom, there, in the farm.  
****So I slept there more than two hours. When my body got a little cold, in my awakening, I walked for a while following the coastline to the north.****  
**

**Suddenly, one day -a week after the new dream I told you about-, something big came long after midday, swimming by the waterway, going southwards.  
**'**Hey, it's My river' -I said to that thing immediately. But I stood watching until it was out of sight.  
****The rest of that afternoon I laid on the grass, meditating in what I had seen, not far from the water, under a soft rain which later got stronger.  
**'**What could it be?' -My young mind was wondering. 'Could mom know the answer? And anyway, what was it?'  
****Only getting into the floating thing I'd find some of the answers.  
****Then I took a walk in the woods, still under the thick rain, to a rock half buried in the ground and covered with mold, where I sat looking to the east with some nostalgia; for in that direction was the farm.  
****Obviously I missed them all, mom and brothers, yet my own choice had taken me there, and if they were thinking I was happy, it had to be true.  
****By sunset when rain went away I entered the river in search of Fishes. Near the sandy bottom I found up to three of a size big enough.  
**'**If mom could see me now...' -Thought my mind for the 100th time or more. She had just started teaching us to hunt when I left home and now here I was, catching under the surface a prey harder to trap than Birds. She would be very proud of me.  
****On the other hand, this very act of going under water to find my lunch made me wish that I could live in the river for the rest of my life... But still, it was no more than a beautiful dream.  
****So I came out again from there with a little sigh, to spend that night between my river and the forest.**


End file.
